NDSU foundation exec pleads guilty to DUI

The chief fundraiser for North Dakota State University has pleaded guilty to drunken driving.

Jim Miller, executive director of the NDSU Development Foundation, received a 30-day suspended jail sentence in Fargo Municipal Court.

Miller also was ordered to pay a $500 fine, undergo a chemical dependency evaluation and attend a victim impact panel.

He entered the change of plea this week through his attorney, Mark Friese.

Fargo police stopped Miller, 61, just after midnight on Feb. 5 for making an improper right turn and arrested him on suspicion of drunken driving.

During a court hearing in May, Miller said he had five or six whiskeys at Monte’s before he was pulled over. Miller said he could not turn from Second Avenue North to the farthest-right lane of 10th Street due to snow blocking the lane.

Miller testified in May that though a preliminary breath test put his blood- alcohol concentration at 0.121 percent, he doesn’t believe he was intoxicated or that his drinking that night skewed his memory of his arrest.

Miller was set to go to trial on the charge Tuesday after Judge Thomas Davies denied a motion to suppress evidence in the case.

Ron Olson, president of the NDSU Development Foundation board, said after Miller’s arrest that he didn’t anticipate the foundation would discipline Miller.